Integrated Operations in the High North (IOHN)

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To be able to operate safely and sustainably in remote, vulnerable and hazardous areas, major stakeholders have joined forces to develop a digital platform which manages the risks and optimisation of next generation integrated operations. Next generation integrated operations will be an important enabler for operations in the High North. The Integrated Operations in the High North (IOHN) project is a unique collaboration between the IT, defence and oil and gas industries.

Contents

1. Challenges in the High North
2. Digital platform for next generation Integrated Operations
3. Integrated Operations in the High North (IOHN) project
4. More information
5. Some relevant links

Challenges in the High North

The Arctic region holds vast amounts of extractive energy resources. Known areas of reserves are the North Slope in Alaska (USA), East Siberia, West Siberia, the Timan-Pechora area, South/North Barents (Russia), the Barents Sea and Lofoten area north-west of Norway, and East Greenland.

Following a recent U.S. Geological Survey study (Fact Sheet 2008-3049), yet undiscovered resources in the arctic areas are estimated to account for about 22% of the remaining undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world.

Most of the arctic resources lie offshore beneath thick ice and deep water in environmentally very sensitive areas. Weather and daylight conditions during some parts of the year give additional operational and logistic challenges. In addition are the arctic resources often located over vast areas and very distant from existing infrastructure and centres of population, leading to further challenges.

Digital platform for next generation Integrated Operations

Oil and gas operations in the High North are likely to entail the remote and distributed control of assets – leading to heavy demands on the communication links and information flow. Connecting and integrating business processes and information sources across organisational boundaries add to the complexity. Further, operations in the High North require a lot of attention to be paid to environmental aspects, as the tolerance for environmental hazards in such vulnerable areas must be as close to zero as possible.

In order to meet all the requirements and at the same time maintain profitable operations, the industry has to create new field development and operation concepts that include heavily instrumented facilities. There must also be put a significant focus on the transfer of real time data between fields and operation centres located elsewhere, and on automated key work processes. Hence, a prerequisite for this development is a robust digital infrastructure and a platform for effective and efficient information exchange, which is the project’s main task.

The digital platform will be demonstrated through three pilots; one for drilling, one for production and one for operations and maintenance.

Integrated Operations in the High North (IOHN) project

The project is set up as seven coordinated activities; four related to the digital platform and three related to the business processes that will be piloted.

The four activities related to the digital platform are:

• Robust sensor networks and control systems (pending)
• Networks, infrastructure and web services
• Semantic oil and gas platform and information assurance
• Risk management for reliable information and IT

The three activities related to the business processes are:

• Unmanned drilling rig
• Improved production
• Sub-ice operation

During a four year period starting May 2008, the 26 participants in the project plan to go from conceptualisation to real-life pilots. During this period the project will both benefit from and contribute to the extensive integrated operations development on the Norwegian continental shelf and in other parts of the world.

The IOHN project consortium includes operators, service providers and software vendors. In addition, the Norwegian Defence is working with the project to resolve common infrastructure and communication challenges. The project is managed by Det Norske Veritas (DNV).

The project is supported by the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF), the Business Association of Norwegian knowledge- and technology-based enterprises (Abelia), and the Norwegian Defence and Security Industries Association (FSi). Financing comes from the partners and the Research Council of Norway (RCN) for parts of the project (GOICT and AutoConRig).

More information

Contact: Frédéric Verhelst (IOHN Project Manager).

Some relevant links

• POSC Caesar Association, the custodian of the ISO 15926 Oil and Gas ontology
• brochure: Integrated Operations and the Oil and Gas Ontology by the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF)
• W3C workshop on Semantic Web in Oil and Gas industry, Houston, December 9-10, 2008. Position papers from several participants in IOHN.
• Semantic Days 2009, Stavanger, May 18-20, 2009. One session is devoted to IOHN.
• IO 09 Science and Practice, Trondheim, September 29-30, 2009. One session is devoted to IOHN.